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Fly on the Wall

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In one of the strangest-sounding sentences ever written, George Brown at wreg.com delivers some good news: "An ongoing project at the Memphis Zoo could be the savior of the Mississippi gopher frog." To be clear, there are no mad scientists at the zoo working overtime to reanimate the stitched-together corpses of gophers and frogs; there are only modestly disgruntled zookeepers using in vitro fertilization to raise 94 Mississippi gopher frog tadpoles. There are only about 100 Mississippi gopher frogs — sometimes, but not as hilariously, called dusky gopher frogs — left in the wild.

Quoted

Longtime Graceland CEO Jack Soden on how Graceland treats famous tourists: "We're tolerant up to a point."

Soden, a Kansas City native, was recently given the hometown-boy-makes-good treatment by the Kansas City Star. He told the Star reporter that Graceland would never become a theme park, that even the president of the United States can't look at Elvis' death toilet, and that only two celebrities have ever been forcibly removed from Graceland: Boy George and Courtney Love.

"George was acting up like he was vying for tabloid coverage," Soden said. "Love wanted to engage in an unmentionable activity."

Sam the Stamp

Liz Scott, a postal activist in Florence, Alabama, is on a mission from God. Or the devil. Or maybe both. Scott won't rest until Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips is depicted on a U.S. postage stamp. Honoring the man who first recorded Elvis, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Ike Turner with a stamp makes sense. But should the stamp feature the young used-car-salesman-looking Phillips who recorded Elvis or the older, wildly hirsute, mad prophet of rock Phillips who — as he would tell you — recorded Elvis?